The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will most likely sign in Ezekiel Elliott after Dallas Cowboys recently released him.
The Buccaneers re-signed star cornerback Jamel Dean, and brought back Lavonte David as well. The team also signed Baker Mayfield to compete with Kyle Trask for the starting quarterback spot.
When when everyone thought they were done, Rick Stroud from The Tampa Bay Timeslinked the Bucs with Elliott, saying that Tampa Bay is expected to be interested.
Ezekiel Elliott was let out of the Dallas Cowboys on Wednesday ahead of free agency officially beginning, putting a top player on the market.
Even though the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are not seen as big spenders this offseason, there is probably some spare cash for Ezekiel.
“Zeke’s impact and influence is seared into the Cowboys franchise in a very special and indelible way,” Jerral Wayne Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, said in a statement. “He has been a consummate professional and leader that set a tone in our locker room, on the practice field and in the huddle. Zeke defined what a great teammate should be, and anyone that has ever played a team sport would be lucky to have a teammate like Zeke and be much better for it.”
In 2019, Elliott signed a six-year extension valued at $90 million that included $50 million in guaranteed money, but his numbers fell off the past three seasons, topping 1,000 yards (with 1,002) only once — in 2021, when the league expanded to a 17-game schedule.
Injuries slowed Elliott’s performance in the past two years. He played through a partially torn posterior cruciate ligament in 2021 while not missing a game. He missed only two games in 2022 because of a hyperextended right knee but wore a brace for most of the season.
Elliott had a career-low 876 rushing yards in 2022, but he scored 12 touchdowns and remained a top short-yardage back and pass protector. But in the final four regular-season games, he averaged just 2.7 yards per carry and had just 17 runs of 10 yards or more on the season.
In 2017, Ezekiel Elliott got a six-game suspension for violating the league’s personal conduct policy. However, in 2018 he led the league in rushing again with 1,434 yards. In 2019, he finished fourth in the NFL in rushing with 1,357 yards.
He had 26 100-yard rushing games in his first four seasons but had just three in the next three seasons, and none in 2022. Last season, he joined Hall of Famers Emmitt Smith and Tony Dorsett as the only backs in the team’s history to reach 10,000 all-purpose yards.
Ezekiel Elliott will be ending his career with the Dallas Cowboys with 1,881 carries for 8,262 yards and 68 rushing touchdowns. He caught 305 passes for 1,336 yards and 12 touchdowns. His 80 career touchdowns are the third most in team history behind Smith (164) and Dorsett (86).
